Many Dutch people trying to exchange their guilders for euros before Wednesday deadline

The Dutch Central Bank (DNB) has received a lot more requests from people who exchange their guilders for euros over the last few months. This is likely due to the deadline on Wednesday: it is the last day that people can submit an exchange request for their 5 Guilder notes and 25 Guilder notes.

The deadline is specifically for all 5 guilder notes with poet and playwright Joost van den Vondel on them and 25 Guilder notes with composer Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck on them.

DNB notified people earlier this year that they had until May to hand in these notes. According to a spokesperson for the central bank, they have received 3,100 exchange requests since then. This is more than the whole of 2024 when DNB received 3,000 requests.

DNB’s headquarters in Amsterdam has also been busier over the last few days, said the spokesperson. People are coming by with their guilders and think that they can exchange them for euros directly, but it does not work this way, the spokesperson explained.

First, a form has to be filled in. This is then followed by the DNB’s decision to approve or deny the request. If it is approved, then people will receive 45 cents for every guilder that they hand in.

The reason that people have to fill in a form is due to the Anti-Money Laundering and Anti-Terrorist Financing Act. This is why the DNB investigates the origins of the money that the people are trying to exchange.

Any figures above 2,500 euros are reported by the bank to the Financial Intelligence Unit, a reporting point for unusual money transactions.

It may have been over 23 years ago since the guilder vanished from the Netherlands, but there are still plenty of guilder notes that have not been exchanged. According to the DNB, there are still 34 million banknotes outstanding, which together represent a value of 425 million euros.

Of these notes, 9 million have a denomination of 5 guilders. Sweelinck is depicted on 3 million notes with a value of 25 guilders each. The other notes can still be handed in until 2032.